Beauty, Mercy, Justice

Catholics for Obama?

Sort of interesting piece at Slate arguing that the politically and/or socially conservative Catholics who left the Democrats during the Reagan years may and should return to vote for Obama. I say "sort of" because I don’t think he makes the "should" part of the case very convincingly. He speaks of the Catholic vote as if it were composed entirely of people who take the teachings of the Church seriously and also think pretty hard about politics. My possibly too-cynical view is that that’s true of only a minority of the people who get counted as "Catholic" in these numbers.

I pretty much agree with Rod Dreher’s opinion: why not just say "I’m a Republican who’s sick of the Republicans, and want change. Obama is a likable, decent guy, and I’m willing to take a chance on him"?

—Maclin Horton

Share this:

Like this:

Related

74 Responses

If Prof. Kmiec wishes to sit this one out or cast a protest ballot, that is his privilege. To offer swiss cheese arguments it takes some effort to believe that he himself takes seriously is not his privelege.

The reason one does not wish to ‘take a chance’ on Mr. Obama is that prevailing understandings of constitutional law within the legal academy are incompatable with democratic political practice and function as an apologia for a sort of mandarinate. Prof. Kmiec knows this and knows that a Pres. Obama will almost certainly be deriving his judicial appointments from a pool of people trained by this legal academy and assenting to its precepts. The following are in the cards (in decending order of probability):

1. Continuation of the current regime of abortion on demand by judicial decree;

That aside, Mr. Obama is but 46 years old; has never superintended a public, commercial, or philanthropic institution; he has had no military service; his time at the bar has been spent as a teacher; has been employed throughout his adult life in the philanthropic sector, experiencing little of the daily business of commerce or public administration or even professional practice (much less the manual trades); his time in elected office has been spent (for the most part) in the Illinois state legislature.

Just because Prof. Kmiec makes a remarkably poor case for voting for Obama doesn’t mean there isn’t a good case to be made.
I am considering voting for him in the March 4 primary, as my last post indicates.

In my analysis, if the neoconservatives continue to steer foreign policy, we are heading for major disaster, on the scale of possible world war, which would undoubtably turn nuclear.
McCain is if anything more belligerant than Bush. Please take a moment and let the implications of that sink in. And he by all accounts is less even-tempered. Truly a danger of unprecedented scale.
Mrs Clinton is also on board the neocon express, if marginally more cautious than Bush. Mr Obama is the only viable candidate at this point who would take the country in a different direction (assuming there is not a major shift to Ron Paul, in light of major scandal re McCain or something unforseeable).
There are other pluses to Obama: his familiarity with other cultures and family connections to Muslims, the racial healing that would come from having a black president, the engagement of young people in the process, and so on.

Of course on the negative side, he has a horrible record on abortion. But if one factors in a cynical view of Republican “prolife” pols, and the fact that if Mr Obama really is trying to bring the country together and reach out to Catholics and Evangelicals he is going to have to be muted on the issue, perhaps the objection can be overridden.

He lived in Indonesia for a while. IIRC, his biography does not include disciplined study of a foreign culture or society.

and family connections to Muslims,

Daniel Pipes has remarked that Mr. Obama does just qualify as an apostate Muslim, something that will introduce a wild card into our relations with that part of the world.

One might suppose his family connections, such as they are (he is estranged from one of his two siblings) would diminish any inclination to turn Muslims into depersonalized objects of contempt; however, the incumbent has be notable for seeking to avoid such in his public statements, so I am not sure that there is much to be gained on that score.

the racial healing that would come from having a black president,

I can’t hurt, but I would be surpised if it made a lick of difference.

the engagement of young people in the process, and so on.

Perhaps true, but one might recall that the press corps sometimes trades in fashionable fiction. Andrew Greeley has a brief discussion in one of his memoirs of youth politics vis-a-vis the federal elections in 1972 – seems the minority who went and cast a ballot usually did so for Mr. Nixon, Tom Wicker’s expectations aside.

On abortion, the electorate is split very nearly into thirds. Both extremes are unlikely to change, while the middle third is conflicted. They sense that abortion is wrong somehow, but can’t bring themselves to forbid others from doing it. That middle third will decide the abortion issue in our democracy, not elected officials or court appointments. Overturning Roe v. Wade will do nothing if the middle votes to keep abortion to be legal.

Two years ago in South Dakota an abortion ban was rejected by the voters. Even in that most conservative of states, even with Catholic and Evangelical voters at the peak of their political power, and even with a gay marriage ban luring them to the polls, the electorate still wanted abortion to be legal! By a wide margin!

Though abortion kills millions, more and more pro-lifers are coming to some important realizations: presidents are powerless to stop abortions; it does not respect life to choose presidents based on abortion; it does not respect life to give pro-life politicians a free pass on every other moral issue, and that we respect life better when we choose presidents based on those things that they can control.

Presidents can start wars or make peace. Presidents can heap enormous debt on our grandchildren or they can balance the budget. Presidents can give huge tax breaks to the wealthy or they can protect the poor from userers. Presidents can spy on their own citizens or they can respect the rule of law. Presidents can recklessly destabilize volatile regions or they can use diplomacy to quell violence. Presidents can get away with torture or they can show the world how to do the right thing even when threatened.

We’ve seen presidents do all these, good and bad. We will never see a president stop abortion. Only voters can do that.

In this election year I urge all of us to respect life. Respect life by fighting abortion in the hearts and minds of people in the middle. Respect life by choosing candidates based on what they actually have power to do in office.

Come on Art, pay attention.
Obviously the USA and the UK and their various toadies -you know, like Poland, Slovakia, and Saudi Arabia, or at least the Saudi royals- vs Russia, Iran, the whole rest of the Muslim world, China, etc.

I’ve been abstaining from this debate, which is bound to be massively inconclusive, but I have to say I think you’re very wrong about the world nuclear war possibility, Daniel. I think it’s a far more likely scenario that a nuclear Iran would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and who knows where it might go from there. From what I read much of the Arab M.E. is quietly looking for us to stop Iran. Which is not to say that I think we should do it.

There does not seem to be a good option available to us. There’s a lot to be said for the Ron Paul (or Obama?) approach–get the hell out and leave them to their fate–but I can’t say I find that particularly noble.

Regarding Obama: if it ends up with him running against McCain, I’ll probably end up voting for McCain, but I won’t be broken-hearted if Obama wins. I do think it could be a healthy development in some ways. And I wonder if the liberals who are swooning over Obama might not get a surprise if he actually makes it to the White House. If he is not a completely empty suit, which I don’t think he is, he will find the view quite a bit different.

I watched a Larry King interview with Michelle Obama earlier. She is very impressive.

The “nuclear Iran” scenario? The rest of the Arab Middle East on our side?
That is assuming that Iran is totally deceptive, when they have welcomed the IAEC overseers, and assuming that the “Arab Middle East” are our pals.

In fact, besides the fact that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi citicens, and Wahhabists, think of the other factors.

150 years ago the Saudis were desert savages, while 3000 years ago Iran, ie, Persia, was a great civilization. By all accounts, despite recent setbacks, under US provocation, Iran is much more democratic, recognizing, for example, the rights of its Jewish and Christian minorities (unlike Saudi Arabia or Israel).
Methinks we have chosen the wrong allies in the Middle East.

Uh, is that a rhetorical question? It can’t be serious.
Perhaps William, who lived in Israel and saw the oppression of the Palestinians firsthand (which led to disillusionment with evangelicalism and to his conversion to Catholicism) would care to answer you?

Thanks DN. I hardly thought it necessary to invite y’all to poke holes in my argument, but now I’ll outright ask you to.

I’ve already said that I doubt the WWIII scenario. China’s much too eager to gobble up all our manufacturing jobs to get into a war. Russia though has not fared so well since 1989, and those chikens will come to roost someday, somehow. Right now there’s no immediate danger because those in power are doing just fine, thank you very much. (BTW, I’m the eldest of my siblings and was born the year the Berlin wall went up. My eldest was born the year it came down. Kinda cool.)

When we were discussing Ghouliani here some time ago (I generally try to avoid fightin’ words, but that moniker’s just too good to pass up), I said that the neocons have entirely discredited themselves and will pass into historical oblivion on Jan 20. We’re starting to hear more and more folks say that W wasn’t really all that conservative after all – the Iraq war was not just unjust, not just reckless and stupid, but inconsistent with any ideology in several ways. Neocons will bear much of that blame.

I’ve had a hard time distinguishing neocons from First Things. Maybe some of you can help me there. How closely is it associated with neocons? What was FT’s position on Iraq? Has its influence waned at all? etc.

Saying that others in the Middle East want us to stop Iran doesn’t at all mean they’re “on our side.”

But I don’t want to engage in a long inconclusive argument. I’ll just say I think your view of all these matters is very one-sided.

Dave, conservatives have been saying that Bush is not very conservative for years now–because he’s not, by any reasonable definition of “conservative,” either practical or abstract. The only way the label fits him is if it’s redefined to mean “what George W. Bush is.”

Ahhh… I’ve only really been listening to conservatives since finding LoDW, almost a year ago. Before that all I had was the few seconds it took me to find the off button on Limbaugh, and the occasional conversations with red faced warmongers. I’m still catching up.

One of those red-faced fellas plans to vote for Obama because he’s so disgusted with W’s spending, BTW.

Obviously the USA and the UK and their various toadies -you know, like Poland, Slovakia, and Saudi Arabia, or at least the Saudi royals- vs Russia, Iran, the whole rest of the Muslim world, China, etc.

I have to say I draw an absolute blank. The United States has some interests that diverge from those of the Russian government – moreso than was the case fifteen years ago, but a great deal less so than was the case twenty-five years ago – but it is difficult to see how that would render a war between the two parties at all likely. Other than an effort by the Russian government to reconquer the ‘near abroad’, it is difficult to imagine an issue that might provoke a coming to blows. (Please note, Russia has had its own troubles with Muslim Jihadists.)

As for China, it is my understanding that there is intense resentment of the occident on the part of the country’s political and intellectual classes, but it is difficult to see how the United States is responsible for defects in the Chinese political culture. One can imagine a game of chicken if China should act to reconquer Taiwan or turn North Korea loose on the world, but the precipitating events would not be our doing (much less Poland’s). I cannot see how we benefit from confrontations with China (though China may calculate that confrontations with us would be a price worth paying for the achievement of certain policy goals).

Uh, is that a rhetorical question? It can’t be serious.
Perhaps William, who lived in Israel and saw the oppression of the Palestinians firsthand (which led to disillusionment with evangelicalism and to his conversion to Catholicism) would care to answer you?.

Israel is a parliamentary republic with a bad security situation, a situation it neither desires nor (bar some incremental adjustments) can much improve by an exercise of its own will.

Saudi Arabia is a patrimonial monarchy cum police state where very little in the way of an autonomous public life is permitted. Among other features of same is that public practice of religions other than Islam is prohibited by law.

The Iranian government is less violent and illiberal than was the case twenty years ago, but the country is governed by a political machine running demonstration elections. Its confessional minorities are proportionately small and harmless. This has not prevented considerable abuse of same, most particularly of the Baha’i population.

“Perhaps William, who lived in Israel and saw the oppression of the Palestinians firsthand (which led to disillusionment with evangelicalism and to his conversion to Catholicism) would care to answer you?” I saw first hand how Arab citizens of Israel are second class citizens to be sure. Something like 50% of them live below the poverty line which is about three times that of Jewish households. Of the forty towns in Israel with the highest unemployment thirty-six of them are Arab. Arab schools get about half of what Jewish schools get. Israeli Arabs are forbidden to take up residence in about 90% of the country. Interestingly, the birth rate among Israeli Arabs is growing considerably faster than Israeli Jews. BTW, I’m only talking about Palestinians living inside Israel (pre-1967), the Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation in the West Bank live under much worst conditions. Their land is confiscated, they are legally tortured, homes are bulldozed in the middle of the night to make room for an illegal settlement. I could go on and on.

“Israel is a parliamentary republic with a bad security situation” Gee, I wonder why and who brought that on?! “a situation it neither desires nor (bar some incremental adjustments) can much improve by an exercise of its own will.” That is simply not true. You’d be amazed at how a returning stolen land would would help diffuse the situation.

I saw first hand how Arab citizens of Israel are second class citizens to be sure. Something like 50% of them live below the poverty line which is about three times that of Jewish households. Of the forty towns in Israel with the highest unemployment thirty-six of them are Arab. Arab schools get about half of what Jewish schools get.

1. You are referring to economic disparities, not to aspects of citizenship.

2. Large inter-ethnic disparities in income can and do exist where there is and has been little in the way of public or private discrimination. Thomas Sowell has written on this point. (Jews are comparatively affluent in the United States as well).

Israeli Arabs are forbidden to take up residence in about 90% of the country.

Only about 7% of the land area of the country is privately owned (and this share is equally divided between Jewish and Arab owners). About 13% is owned by the Jewish National Fund (which actually is reserved for use by the Jewish population). About 80% is state land, which can be leased by Jewish or Arab citizens.

Birth rates throughout the Levant and North Africa are declining, quite rapidly in some locales. They are now below replacement in Tunisia, Algeria, and Iran. They are higher in the occupied territories but lower than what they were a generation ago.

BTW, I’m only talking about Palestinians living inside Israel (pre-1967), the Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation in the West Bank live under much worst conditions. Their land is confiscated, they are legally tortured, homes are bulldozed in the middle of the night to make room for an illegal settlement. I could go on and on.

Leaving aside the question of the quantitative frequency of these various phenomena, one might note that the political leadership of the resident Arab population has rejected three clear opportunities since 1947 to make a settlement with their Jewish neighbors, and reacted in a refractory manner to other initiatives (e.g. the attempt to institute elected municipal authorities in 1972). Acts have consequences.

“Israel is a parliamentary republic with a bad security situation” Gee, I wonder why and who brought that on?!

People who bomb pizzarias.

“a situation it neither desires nor (bar some incremental adjustments) can much improve by an exercise of its own will.” That is simply not true. You’d be amazed at how a returning stolen land would would help diffuse the situation.

The Jews can also reduce their carbon footprint by committing suicide.

First, were you supporting the rights of the Palestinians before suicide bombers in Israel? Secondly,
Imagine one day a foreign army unit comes and forces your family out of your home at gunpoint and tells you must leave and not come back. With just the clothes on your back, you and your parents and brothers and sisters suddenly have no place to go. You wind up in a makeshift shelter on some barren hills and have to scratch for your substance. Your mother is crying. Your father, head of the family feels humiliated and helpless. Your siblings are cold and scared, every day. You are not alone, there are many others in similar situations around. Their homes and farms were also “appropriated”. There’s no running water, no sewers, no electricity, no schools, and no doctors to help you. Imagine living under such conditions for decades and growing up in squalor. Then think how you would feel if you were not allowed to leave without showing your identity card to the soldiers who surround your “town”. Think of the humiliation. The only jobs you can get are working the very lands that were stolen from your parents or their parents years before. While you work you can see the fine homes and new apartments built on the seized land. The people who live there were born in America and Europe. The people living there claim that, “God gave us this land.” You and some friends join together to try to fight back and reclaim your dignity if not your land. The soldiers have machine guns and tanks. You have rocks. You throw rocks at checkpoints and the soldiers fire guns back and kill your best friend. You get arrested and are sent to prison where you’re tortured and never charged.

Meanwhile your mother dies, unable to get to a checkpoint to give birth at the nearby clinic. Your cousin’s land was seized and your uncle’s house was bulldozed. Your schools are closed. While in prison you keep seeing boxes of supplies which read, “Made in USA”. Your rage only grows, but you don’t have an army to fight the invaders. In desperation you begin to contemplate retribution and acts of violence like bombings. A terrorist has been born. But in his eyes, the real terror was done to him and his family and people first. He is simply striking back.

You do not put a time or a place on your narrative, so I am not sure with any degree of precision that about that which I am to respond.

A few things appear implicit therein which require some qualification.

1. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has been supplied with gobs of money over the last sixty years toward material support of Arab refugees from within the old mandatory Palestine;

2. Arab governments, bar that of Jordan, have tended to inhibit resettlement of Arab refugees and incorporation of same into the civic life of other Arab states by refusing to grant them citizenship. Lebanon and the Gulf emirates had passable reasons for being stingy about naturalization of foreign residents, reasons that Syria and Egypt did not.

3. Even so, Jordanian citizens benefitted considerably from economic opportunity in the Gulf. The Jordanian economy saw increases in per capita income in the period running from 1960 to 1980 on a par with South Korea and Hong Kong, driven by remittances.

4. The post-war period in Europe saw refugee flows out of East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, and the Sudetenland that exceeded those out of mandatory Palestine by a factor of nine. The refugee flow out of northern Cyprus in 1974 was a great deal smaller, but the ratio of refugee to recipeint population was actually larger. Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of Sephardic and Oriental Jews during the period running from 1948 to 1967. We have not faced decades of political violence on the part of Sudeten Germans or Greek Cypriots (nor are any of these populations resident in shanty towns) because such was not nurtured by a network of exterior governments and because populations are variable in how they respond to adversity.

5. An equilibrium that would allow the Jewish and Arab populations to live juxtaposed to each other without bloodshed is an agreeable idea. The difficulty is that the set of arrangements minimally acceptable to one party are not minimally acceptable to the other. Caviling about the current situation is feckless unless you have a better (and implementable) idea.

Your “answer” has nothing to do with the reality of the day to day situation on the ground which I have described. As for a time frame, this sort of scenario has happened thousands of time on the West Bank and Gaza since 1982 and of course Israel created hundreds of thousands of refugees before that. Are you a Christian Zionist by chance? Your apparent support of Israel creating refugees sure makes you sound like one. Where are you? I have a pretty good network of Christian Palestinian friends across the country. I’d be glad to hook you up with them in order that they might shed some light on the situation in their homeland and especially what it’s like to live under Israeli occupation.

To be fair, William, in this case Art’s density is not unique; Americans have largely bought into a mythical narrative regarding Isreal, one that renders them immune to sympathy for the Palestinians, who are stereotyped as terrorists. The facts of Israeli aggression and oppression do not even come into play.
Suicide bombing, regardless of the myth, is not unique to Muslim resistance movements. It is a technique that is used by people who face overwhelming military superiority. Between 1980 and 2004 over 95% of all incidents had clear political objectives. The technique originated with the Tamil Tigers, a Marxist group operating in a Hindu context. A Japanese communist carried out the first suicide attack in Israel, in 1972. In Lebanon there were 41 suicide attacks between 1982 nd 86; of these 8 were committed by Muslim fundamentalists, 27 by secular leftists, and 3 by Christians.
(This information is based on the study of terrorism by Robert Pape).

Specifics?
For starters, stop imprisoning Palestinians on mere suspicion, without charges. Stop razing the houses of anyone related to an alleged terrorist. Stop encroaching on Palestinian lands by looking the other way as Jewish settlers erect new settlements. Stop killing them (contrary to the impression one is given by anti-Palestinian propaganda, way more Palestinians are killed by Israelis than the obverse). Much can be accomplished by an Israeli apology, and admission of guilt (given Arab social customs, this is the first step to reconciliation).

Amen. Not unless it is Ron Paul, though, which seems increasingly unlikely, or Barack Obama, which is looking not unlikely, barring Clinton dirty tricks, or a landslide in Texas and Ohio…

While I remain skeptical of Obama, not least for his terrible record on abortion, I have to admit he is personable. And his proposals in the ads he is airing in Ohio are not vague and airy at all, but specific and substantive.

And the guy is pretty funny. When asked about his youthful drug use- about which he has been refreshingly candid- one interviewer asked him “Did you inhale?”
To which Mr Obama replied, “Well, that was the point, wasn’t it?”

And he gave a speech in Ohio the other day, and said that the world will breathe a sigh of relief on November 6 2008, when the name “George Bush” is not on the ballot.
“Nor will the name of my cousin, Dick Cheney, be on that ballot”. (I am paraphrasing). When the laughter died down, he said, “When the geneologists announced that we shared a common ancestor, it was pretty embarrassing”. More laughter, then, “I mean when they do your geneology, you hope you’re related to somebody cool”.

I can’t tell you how fascinated I am by this conversation. I’m equally grateful to find this website! I am a convert to the Catholic church (10 years ago) and have struggled since that time to find my “place” in the church. As a committed Catholic, I have found the “liberal” church alienating to my faith. As an African American woman, I have found the Tridentine (LOVE this mass!) “community” socially and politically alienating. I’m particularly amused by the fact that this conversation blends two subjects that I currently feel most passionate about. I am a history teaching who is currently teaching at a school in Saudi Arabia. When I lived in the States I taught AP U.S. history as well as Middle Eastern Studies. I’ve taught about the Arab/Israeli conflict on the North Shore of Chicago (in a heavily Jewish populated community). Now that I’m teaching in Saudi Arabia, I have had the opportunity to teach the same subject in a classroom of predominately Arab students (No Saudis, but Syrian, Palestinian, Lebanese etc). As an ardent support of Senator Obama, I am thrilled to be among a Catholic crowd who will not socially lynch me for stating my allegiance to a Democratic candidate!! I would love to “correct” your impressions of Arab history, Saudi society & the Arab/Israeli conflict, but I’ve given up my know-it-all attitude for Lent
:-)

Thank you for one of the first feelings of community I have experienced as a Catholic–albeit virtual :-)

Welcome, catmartin. Sounds like you would have a very interesting perspective on things. People who participate here are all over the map politically, so any one person can get away with almost anything. :-)

Yes, welcome catmartin. You sound like you have lived a pretty interesting life; I look forward to hearing more from you.
While you have given up knowing it all for Lent, can you at least tell us whose ideas you would correct if you could? Meaning Art Deco’s or William’s and mine?
And how did you find us?

catmartin: glad to hear from you. My two cents – besides my own home, mass is the only place where I feel like I belong, always, regardless of language, class, politics, anthing. It is a great comfort to me.

I’m kinda new here too. I think the people here and on Maclin’s site are terrific.

Tear down the wall. Hey, maybe the new president will travel to the West Bank, stand at the wall and give Israel a “Tear down this wall” speech!

The Berlin wall was erected in 1961 to prevent residents of East Germany from emigrating through the portal provided by West Berlin, which was under allied occupation as a relic of the Second World War. The wall the Government of Israel has erected between the West Bank and Israel proper is to contain a security threat by inhibiting unregulated traffic between the two territories. A wall is an inert thing that does no violence to anyone. Constructing it induces irritation and injury to the interests of particular parties subject to eminent domain seizures, but these are, at this juncture, sunk costs. There is no purpose to dismantling it unless it be your object to have less security in Israel.

For starters, stop imprisoning Palestinians on mere suspicion, without charges. Stop razing the houses of anyone related to an alleged terrorist. Stop encroaching on Palestinian lands by looking the other way as Jewish settlers erect new settlements. Stop killing them (contrary to the impression one is given by anti-Palestinian propaganda, way more Palestinians are killed by Israelis than the obverse). Much can be accomplished by an Israeli apology, and admission of guilt (given Arab social customs, this is the first step to reconciliation).
Oh, and give them back their land.

Order and civil peace are a function of social habits, the socializing done by informal institutions, and the operations of the apparatus of state. Refined legal procedure assumes that civil order is the norm and breaches of same the exception. Such has not been the case in the West Bank, which has seen repeated bouts of low intensity warfare over the last twenty-odd years.

It ought be recalled in this circumstance that the last round of tangible political concessions to the Arab population in the West Bank and Gaza occurred over the period running from 1993 to 2000 and comprehended the withdrawal of Israeli troops from about half the land area of these two territories where resided north of 90% of their population. More recently, Israeli troops have withdrawn entirely from Gaza. The net improvement in the physical security in Israel proper attributable to these acts has been…well there has been no net improvement.

Repeated bouts of political violence have been a feature of life in that little part of the world since 1922. That is regrettable. Latent in recommendations of unilateral disarmament is the notion that violence on the part of the Arab population is a purely reactive phenomenon and also the notion that the Arab population or its political class is possessed of ultimate objects that might be achieved through conciliation or arbitration. Both of these notions are, of course, quite fanciful.

Regarding Daniel’s question, I’d have to say that based on my time and travels in the Middle East and everything I’ve learned about the political situation(s) thus far, I agree wholeheartedly with William. I haven’t spent that much time in Israel/Palestine, but his account of the situation rings true to my experience. Minus the characterization of Arabs as being “desert savages” 150 years ago (Let’s not forget the highly advanced Islamic Civilization that had its origins in Saudi Arabia in the 7th Century–the glories of the Persian and Sassanid Civilizations not withstanding), I agree with your comments as well Daniel.

I don’t mean to sound like a relativist (because I’m NOT!), but viewing Saudi Arabia from the framework of American history will undoubtedly render a false analysis. Our country has seen its share of injustices, and we have plotted our own trajectory towards resolving those problems–a trajectory that makes sense in light of our values and culture. (As Obama’s reception signals, we’ve come a long way on this path! I agree with Maclin that a President Obama would has a tremendous capacity to heal racial divisions in the U.S.) Like us, I think the Saudi’s and other countries have to resolve their internal issues in a time frame and cultural terrain that reflects their values and culture–not ours! I don’t think this prevents us from commenting on the progress (or lack their of) as we see it. I just think we have to be far more aware of the lense through which we’re making these judgements.

I must clarify that I was not generalizing about Muslims, who as you know had a very high level of civilization in the various caliphates. And contrary to some stereotypes, these were often tolerant toward Jews and Christians. Indeed, the great Islamic civilizations all were, with notable lapses.
I was refering only to the Saudi tribes, who were nomadic and relatively uncivilized. That they- in whose lands are the Muslim holy places- embraced Wahhabism is a great tragedy. That they exported this least tolerant version of Islam under American auspices is another.

FWIW, I don’t think one can vote for Obama in good conscience and reconcile that with anything like an orthodox Catholicism unless his opposition is his equal in regard to the abortion issue. Even a nominally, pro-life candidate like McCain makes choosing Obama impermissable as I calculate it.

I know the war — and rumor of war — is the big issue for folks like Dan Nichols but near as I can tell the idea of endless war comes mostly from bumper sticker caricatures of a various ideas promoted by commentators in places like National Review. Even the most ardent supporter of our current adventure in Iraq admits that it will come to an end eventually. Perhaps McCain’s 100 years comment represents the maximum end of that range.

That said, Obama does not see abortion as some sort of temporary and tolerated evil that eventually and necessarily will have to end. Rather, he sees it as a fundamental and inalienable right. Even with a dedicated warrior in the oval office I’d say that the probability of continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond the next 4 years is only about 50/50. Odds for opening a third theater of operations even less. Also Obama is not a pacifist, he has admitted a number of circumstances under which he would take us to war. That being the case, and given the grave flaws in his moral calculus, it’s not a given that he’ll bring us a peace of any sort. It may simply be the case that we get a fool war of another sort.

Meantime, I don’t think it’s wise to simply take our ball and go home with regards to Iraq and Afghanistan. I didn’t want to go but we went and now I think we have a moral obligation to see it through. Granted, it’s an obligation most of us would rather not have but it’s real and it’s there and we shouldn’t shirk it (although I think we probably will). So, as I see it, the war and fear of war offers little moral cover for Catholics wishing to support Obama.

Dan Nichols brings up an excellent point about what a pro-life politician can expect to accomplish. He is certainly right that the answer is not much but it’s also not nothing. Whatever the faults of George W. Bush he did accomplish one positive thing for pro-lifers which must never be overlooked: he made embryonic stem cell research unnecessary. By banning federal funding of ESCR he essentially forced scientists to find some other way. As it happens that other way has been found and destructive ESCR will soon be a thing of the past. The other thing he did was sign an executive order that prevents our foreign aid from promoting/supplying contraception and abortion services. Obama would certainly have allowed federal funds for ESCR and will certainly approve the latter. Point being, I don’t think that we should stop taking small steps (which often lead to bigger things) just because we cannot take large ones.

This is all speculation for me and really presents no dilemma for me. I live in a state and district where Democrats usually run unopposed and no Republican (however meek or mild) can hope to win. That being the case, I vote only if it is convenient to do so and then simply turn in a blank ballot. If I lived somewhere where it made a difference I suppose I’d vote for McCain but not with much enthusiasm.

Assuming Obama is the Democratic nominee, I also have difficulty justifying a Catholic voting for him, although I haven’t entirely ruled out doing so. His position on abortion is, as Christopher Woods pointed out, very bad, and I fear that he would also be a zealous advocate of the acceptance of homosexuality. His foreign policy views are unclear. But I certainly could never vote for McCain, whose positions on warmaking seem clearly wrong.

As for staying in Iraq because we have a “moral obligation” – I don’t understand that. It’s not our country, we haven’t gained any rights to it by attacking and destroying it. If it could be shown that the majority of Iraqis want us to stay, that would be another matter of course, but I’ve seen no evidence of that.

To clarify, I think that our ‘moral obligation’ lies in the fact that we are the primary guarantors of whatever security prevails in many sectors of Iraq. Until such time as we can transfer that responsibility responsibly (i.e. in such a way as to be reasonably certain that reprisal won’t follow) I think we have an obligation. This is why it would have been better not to have gone in the first place. In going we have assumed the role of civil protector and it cannot be abandoned lightly (though I think we will). I agree it’s not a right it’s an obligation akin to leaving the scene of an accident. FWIW, I have seen opinion polls that indicate the Iraqis DO want us to stay at least a bit longer although I haven’t looked at any recently. Point taken, however the main reasons put forth for abandoning Iraq in the current debate have more to do with our national desire not to deal with a mess of our own making than anything the Iraqis may wish. But the government of Iraq which is duly elected ought to be a sufficient reflection of the will of the Iraqi people and they seem to want our presence for a bit longer.

To clarify, I am considering voting for Obama in the primary; I haven’t decided what I will do in the general election if it is Obama vs McCain (and contrary to the common wisdom, I suspect that McCain will not be the nominee. Just watch).
But at this point a vote for Dr Paul in the primary would be purely symbolic. He has gone home to Texas to fight for his congressional seat.
On the other hand, Ohio is pivotal to the Democratic race. Clinton and Obama cancel one another out on abortion, and a Clinton presidency would be awful for the nation; whatever his flaws Obama would be much better in so many ways.
In the end I may sit out the general election; no matter what happens it looks like it will be a choice between two evils. Yet again.
But I don’t think a vote against a foreign policy that one believes is heading for global war would be evil. And I believe that it meets the Church’s criteria, as stated by then-Cardinal Ratzinger in the last American election, when he stated that it can be acceptable to vote for a candidate that falls short on abortion for a “proportionate reason”.

My notion of expanding war does not come from bumper stickers or caricatures of NR commentators; it comes from what men who have great influence in the current administration are saying. As every Republican candidate save Dr Paul basically tows the Bush line, a vote for McCain, or if he sinks in scandal, whatever Republican saves the day, is a vote for more of the same. Apparently I am nearly alone in seeing this as a grave risk of world war…

“Apparently I am nearly alone in seeing this as a grave risk of world war…”
Not so. McCain scares the hell out of me. I hope you’re right about him not being the nominee. Considering the guy’s ego, there may just be something big on him to come out. While I couldn’t vote for Obama because of abortion, I’d much rather see him as president than Clinton.

Certainly imminent threat of world war would be a proportionate reason. Whether it truly is imminent or not is another matter. I have to admit I think the most likely grave scenario I can imagine is a continuation of the sorts of small, conventional wars we have seen lately. Personally, I believe we are headed into an era of American isolationism and it’s really all a matter of how quickly we can extract ourselves from our overseas entanglements. That being the case, I think the proportionate reason cuts the other way (i.e. it’s permissible to vote for a pro-war candidate in order to oppose a pro-abortion one). Keep in mind this is all theoretical for me, I live in the bluest of the blue states so my vote is only symbolic at best. Truth be told, I’m planning on giving it a miss.

As a “continuation of the sorts of small [?], conventional wars we have seen lately” means the death of tens, more probably hundreds, of thousands of innocents (but hey, who counts these post-Vietnam days, and who cares?) I think your view is skewed.
Unless you are into the quantitative approach, and how does that work, considering aborton numbers vary little whether a putative “prolife” or “prochoice” president oversees the slaughter? Indeed, there is evidence that the numbers rise when the Right rules, as econmomic pressures rise.

Your earlier point about the putative prolifers at least limiting US funding for international baby killing is a good point, I admit. But have international abortions decreased? I don’t know; is there any evidence for this claim?

As for Iraq, the idea that because the US precipitated the current crisis means a moral obligation for endless occupation seems like a fallacy.
All the polls I have seen show that the Iraqis want us out.
I do think there is an obligation to withdraw in an orderly manner, unlike the scramble out of Vietnam. And we certainly owe them long and generous ecomomic assistance.
But in the end, what we owe Iraq and the rest of the world is repentence, and a firm resolution to change our ways.

Meanwhile, Mr Bush just concluded a trip to Africa, the purpose of which is to secure American military bases.

I’ve said it before… I think the president has for all practical purpose, almost no effect on abortion, even considering the Supreme Court. The president does have a very direct effect on foreign policy. Considering then the practicality of it all, there is plenty of proportional reason to vote for Obama over McCain.

My hope is that we pro-lifers will stop this all consuming preoccupation with RvW and start winning hearts. We will not solve the abortion issue with government working down.

Perhaps some of you heard the NPR report from Toledo this evening. It focussed on Catholics and their preference for Clinton. The reporter said that he could find no Catholic who even considered abortion in their vote. That sure isn’t true in my part of Ohio.

Perhaps some of you heard the NPR report from Toledo this evening. It focussed on Catholics and their preference for Clinton. The reporter said that he could find no Catholic who even considered abortion in their vote. That sure isn’t true in my part of Ohio.

It’s NPR. It is a reasonable wager they were not looking too hard (or looking for Catholics who actually attend Mass).

Perhaps some of you heard the NPR report from Toledo this evening. It focussed on Catholics and their preference for Clinton. The reporter said that he could find no Catholic who even considered abortion in their vote. That sure isn’t true in my part of Ohio.

It’s NPR. It is a reasonable wager they were not looking too hard (or looking for Catholics who actually attend Mass).

There seems to be a certain sort of Catholic, usually older (60+, maybe more like 65+), for whom voting Democratic is as much a part of being Catholic as going to Mass. There are a couple of those around here who have made themselves pests to the local papers by barraging them with raving letters to the editor, which can be summed up as “Republicans and conservatives are evil and un-Christian.” One of them is a priest.

None of these Catholic Democratic voters mention what is generally assumed to be the big issue for Catholics, which is abortion.

— from the transcript of the broadcast.

NPR’s object was to interview registered Democrats in anticipation of the Ohio primary. They gave no indication of the proportion of those they prospected who were not registered Democrats or who would not talk to them. Which is to say they got a self-selected group of bowling aficionados and a self-selected group of observant Catholics adhering to F. Scott FitzGerald’s test of a first-rate intelligence. Enjoy the company.

Art: As is the case too often, I don’t get your point. Whatever else may be said, they still went to a weekday Mass in Toledo Ohio and found daily communicants who were going to vote for Mrs Clinton.

Who, by the way, left a message on my answering machine while we were at the Divine Liturgy today (though cynics would say it was an automated recording).

Sorry I missed her call, would have loved to have talked to her.

Boy, we Ohioans are feeling important these days.

So far, Ms Hillary is beating Mr Barack in the mailings and phone calls, but Obama is all over the radio (and I assume the TV).

Though Ms Clinton’s propaganda is a bit disingenuous; she is denouncing GAT and NAFTA and decrying the loss of American manufacturing jobs to China.

Like we are so stupid that we forget just who oversaw that mess (Mr Bill, with the enthusiastic cooperation of most of the Republicans) and who (Ms Hillary) sat on the board of Walmart while it sold our jobs to China.

If you wish to understand my point, repair to this remark by “J Dave G”:

“The reporter said that he could find no Catholic who even considered abortion in their vote. That sure isn’t true in my part of Ohio.”

The objects of the reporters in question (looking for registered Democrats willing to comment on an upcoming Democratic primary) would have largely screened out voters motivated by abortion policy. (Here in New York, perhaps one adult in fifteen can be expected to cast a ballot in a contested Democratic primary). That there are observant Catholics who routinely cast ballots for candidates such as H. Clinton is familiar to anyone who has read discussions of exit polls in recent years. That observant Catholics in Toledo uniformly give no consideration to such matters is almost certainly nonsense.

No, shipping manufacturing jobs to third world, union-free countries, with no disincentive from the State has made large swathes of the United Stated pretty wretched. At least for folks who have no aptitude for higher education (still the majority). Been good for military recruiters, though.

That sure isn’t true in my part of Ohio.
Well, Yeller Springs is a long way from Toledo, and I don’t just mean geographically. Toledo is industrial, union, ethnic, very Catholic and rust belt, none of which is true of your part of Ohio.

To pick up again on some earlier comments, Christophe Woods said, “To clarify, I think that our ‘moral obligation’ lies in the fact that we are the primary guarantors of whatever security prevails in many sectors of Iraq. Until such time as we can transfer that responsibility responsibly (i.e. in such a way as to be reasonably certain that reprisal won’t follow) I think we have an obligation.”

Mr. Woods, do you think that the U.S. forces in Iraq are acting ultimately on behalf of the Iraqi people and their interests or ultimately on behalf of (warped) U.S. interests, e.g., oil, Israel, a permanent presence in the Middle East? But even if it is the former, we have no right to assume control of another country without that country’s approval. The latest polling of Iraqis that I’ve seen indicates a large majority want us to begin withdrawing, though actually by even larger majorities they doubt that we would leave even if asked by the Iraqi government.

Per Martin Kramer of Tel Aviv University, officials of the Government of Israel attempted without success to persuade the Bush Administration to give priority to containment of Iran, not Iraq.

Given the share of gross domestic product attributable to extractive industries, the share of that attributable to the petroleum industry, the share of the world’s proven reserves to be found in Iraq, & c., you could not make a ‘business case’ for a conquest of Iraq.

The utility of foreign direct investment is in large measure a function of lower labor costs which are a function of the low productivity of alternative employments available in particular foreign areas. I suspect if you tallied the numbers you would find that that factor dwarfs in size the wage premiums to be had from union contracts as well as the additional cost to consumers from import duties.

There is a considerable theoretical and applied literature on the benefits of liberalization of trade (though the benefits are understood as aggregate and do not have an even spatial distribution).

Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves, and is the only country that could produce at the current rate for over a hundred years. American companies were denied access to this wealth after the Baath party nationalized oil in the 70s. The Bush family and Dick Cheney are wealthy because of oil.

You figure it out, Artie.

Of course, what you probably will do is post yet another ponderous and rambling discourse on God knows what.

I just returned from the Obama rally in Dayton. Some quick observations, first the negatives: he didn’t mind being very negative and potentially divisive about W (which gave me some guilty pleasure), there was a fair amount of typical “chicken in every pot” promises. On the positive side:the vast majority of the speech was about working together, he was not just charismatic (old news) but also very relaxed confident (almost cocky) and often funny too, the so called “empty” rhetoric is not all that empty.

The mood overall was upbeat but not euphoric. Some individuals in the crowd sometimes cheered entusiastically, sometimes clapped calmly, and other times looked on in a concerned way. Strangers were open and ready to discuss what they thought. I talked to old time Catholic Democrats like NPR found at the bowling alley, a Democrat who felt lonely among her fellow Republican bankers (she took notes), and a family of Republicans who just wanted to be part of what could be a potentially historic candidacy, a man who is open to all three remaining candidates.

1. Has there been a change in the institutional arrangements regarding the property rights to either Kuwaiti or Iraqi oil fields?

2. Did any American company aquire rights at concessionary prices?

3. What is the net benefit to the American gross domestic product (expressed as an annuity) of a hypothetical transfer of property rights in Iraqi oil fields (again, multiply the share of our economy attributable to extractive industries, the share of that attributable to petroleum, the share of international traffic attributable to Iraqi oil, & c. – I think these three ratios alone are something along the lines of .065*.5*.05 – benefits to the economy as a whole begin to look proportionately very small)?

4. How would the figure calculated above compare to the bill for the war (re-expressed as an annuity)?

If you plug the numbers in, I do not think you are going to find that those calculated under point 3 above are going to exceed those calculated under point 4.

The President did not do well in the oil business. He made a good deal of money as the managing partner of a baseball club. His father made a modest fortune (around $4 million in today’s currency) in the oil business in Texas during the years running from 1948-63. However, the family was already wealthy; the President’s paternal grandfather had a lucrative career in investment banking, and all of the President’s paternal uncles worked in some aspect of finance. The maternal grandfather was in the publishing business, &c. The President’s grandfather Prescott Bush was the scion of a family that made good in manufacturing, not extractive industries. The family’s wealth is not based on oil.

Richard Cheney made his millions during a five year stint superintending a firm that specializes in selling capital equipment to oil companies and also does a fair amount of government contracting. Mr. Cheney had previously been Secretary of Defense and so had administrative experience of note, but had not worked for a commercial company in 27 years and his previous position in that vein had been a technician’s job with a local phone company in Wyoming. I would wager there is a legitimate complaint about what made him an attractive hire for the Halliburton Corporation. That he would be willing to start a war to benefit the commercial interests of his former employer is not likely what made him attractive.

Although Mssrs. Nichol and his ilk probably won’t disavow their “support” for Obama, look at what that so-called “decent, likable” guy thinks is his worst mistake in the Senate. There is a reason Obama was considered the most liberal member of the Senate in 2007.

Cleveland, OH (LifeNews.com) — Senator Barack Obama debated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night and said his biggest mistake was voting with a unanimous Senate to help save Terri Schiavo. Terri is the disabled Florida woman whose husband won the legal right to starve her to death.

In March 2005, just weeks before Terri died from a painful 14-day starvation and dehydration death, Congress approved legislation allowing her family to take its case from state courts to federal courts in an effort to stop the euthanasia from proceeding.

Terri was not on any artificial breathing apparatus and only required a feeding tube to eat and drink. Her family had filed a lawsuit against her former husband to allow them to care for her and give her proper medical and rehabilitative care.

The Senate unanimously approved a compromise bill, which the House eventually supported on a lopsided bipartisan vote and President Bush signed, to help the disabled woman.

During the Tuesday debate, Obama said he should have stood up against the life-saving legislation.

“It wasn’t something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped,” Obama said.

“And I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better,” he added.

This isn’t the first time Obama has said the biggest mistake he made as senator was voting to help try to stop Terri from being euthanized.

During an April 2007 debate, Obama said, “I think professionally the biggest mistake that I made was when I first arrived in the Senate. There was a debate about Terri Schiavo, and a lot of us, including me, left the Senate with a bill that allowed Congress to intrude where it shouldn’t have.”

“And I think I should have stayed in the Senate and fought more for making sure [Terri’s parents couldn’t take their case to federal court to save her life],” he explained.

Since Terri’s death, the Schindler family has established a foundation to help disabled and elderly patients obtain proper medical care and legal and other assistance when they are denied it.

Washington DC, Feb 20, 2008 / 07:16 pm (CNA).- Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama has been endorsed by Frances Kissling, the former president of the pro-abortion group Catholics for a Free Choice.

In an article written for the Huffington Post, Kissling defended her endorsement of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton saying that his presidency would finish the “social transformation” begun by the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

“While I believe in the nitty gritty of a day-to-day legislative agenda, there will be little difference between Clinton and Obama, I am convinced that in the larger struggle to complete the social transformation promised by Roe, Obama’s instincts and values will bring us closer to that transformation,” Kissling said.

Kissling broke ranks with other feminists who favor abortion rights but have endorsed New York Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. She said that both candidates would appoint Supreme Court justices who favor Roe v. Wade, overturn the Mexico City policy that forbids funding for non-governmental organizations that also perform abortions, and restore funding to the United Nations Population Fund, which lost US funding after its co-operation with coerced abortions in China was exposed.

Kissling said that Clinton had “more than once failed the movement” for abortion rights, such as when Senator Clinton did not include abortion coverage in her 1994 health care reform plan. She also disliked Clinton’s support for laws permitting objecting health professionals to refuse to provide services they consider immoral. Kissling wanted to know whether her present universal health care program “will give religious organizations the right to refuse to provide services they consider ‘immoral’ – emergency contraception, voluntary sterilization, condoms to prevent HIV, and assisted reproduction come to mind.”

Senator Obama, Kissling thought, would transform American culture and solidify support for legalized abortion.

“It is no longer about ‘winning, the culture war. It is about completing the social transformation that Roe began but did not solidify,” Kissling concluded. “That task, I believe, will best be accomplished by a president who sees her or his role as calling us to greatness … I think Barack Obama is the person who can do that,” she said.

My ilk and I were considering “supporting” Obama for purely strategic reasons: to avert more war and to avoid another Clinton presidency. Arguably, an Obama presidency would do less harm than either a Clinton or McCain regime.
But I too was taken aback by his repentence for doing the right thing about Mrs Schiavo. I watched the debate last night on the computer, the first time I had seen Obama when he wasn’t speechifying, which he is very good at. I was not too impressed, and it increasingly looks like I will do what I always do in presidential elections: abstain or vote for an impossible candidate.
I am still considering voting for Obama in next week’s Ohio primary, which has turned into a pivotal one, simply to be rid of the Clintons, at least for now. (They always come back.)Unlike Ms Kissling, I do not think the difference between Mr Obama and Ms Clinton on abortion is significant at all. They cancel each other out. I believe that a vote for Obama in the primary can be meet the criteria of Catholic moral principle, but I am not sure if I will do it or not.

As an aside, I once attended a talk by Frances Kissling, in the early 80s, at Georgetown University. The student prolife organization protested her appearance at a Catholic school, and the administration granted them the opportunity for a rebuttal. They chose an elderly Jesuit to respond, a real urbane and gentlemanly fellow, in the best Jesuit tradition.
He patiently tried to explain the Church’s opposition to abortion, assuming that the poor woman was simply well meaning but uninformed. He always addressed her as “Ms Quisling”, in total innocence, which cracked my friends and I up. (I attended this with Franklin Salazar, back when he was a pleasant youth.) Finally, when the priest realized that this woman knew full well what she was doing, he sputtered “This woman is a heretic!” and stormed from the room.

Art, you are no doubt right; the war has not paid off. But that was not the way it was supposed to go. It was going to be a cakewalk, remember? And then Iraq, which Wolfowitz gushed, is “swimming in oil”, could be exploited. Of course this was yet another miscalculation in the Iraq fiasco.
As it turned out, the insurgency made most corporations balk, but the legal groundwork has been laid for American and British corporations to exploit Iraq’s oil resources, though this has met with some Iraqi resistance.

That you think it insignificant that George H W Bush became a multimillionaire in the oil business strikes me as downright weird. And it was not just Texas oil; the Bush family’s ties to the Saudi royals, and the Bin Laden family, go back decades.

The president did not do well in the oil business.
True, but did you know that over a million dollars of Saudi money was poured into his not-very-successful Arbusto oil company? From the pockets of Salem bin Laden, Osama’s older brother?

And finally, from Osama’s mouth himself. I would support a Republican candidate, if only for the chance to get 1 more decent SCOTUS nomination, even if the Prez would immorally raise my taxes. I guess Mr. Nichols won’t be able to vote for Osama either. Oh well.

In the July 17 speech, Obama attacked the Supreme Court decision that upheld the federal partial-birth abortion ban and the nomination of Supreme Court justices who favor overturning Roe v. Wade. In the speech the senator said, “There will always be people, many of goodwill, who do not share my view on the issue of choice. On this fundamental issue, I will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield.”

Obama based his speech around the question, “What kind of America will our daughters grow up in?”

“For the first time in Gonzales versus Carhart,” Obama said, “the Supreme Court held—upheld a federal ban on abortions with criminal penalties for doctors. For the first time, the Court’s endorsed an abortion restriction without an exception for women’s health. The decision presumed that the health of women is best protected by the Court—not by doctors and not by the woman herself. That presumption is wrong.”

He warned abortion supporters that the partial-birth abortion ban should not be construed as an isolated effort, saying it was wrong to presume the law was “not part of a concerted effort to roll back the hard-won rights of American women.”

Obama said the decision had encouraged an Alabama lawmaker to introduce a measure to ban all abortions. “With one more vacancy on the Court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a woman’s fundamental right to choose for the first time since Roe versus Wade and that is what is at stake in this election,” Obama claimed.

The senator said he had a long tradition of support for legalized abortion, citing his efforts in the Illinois State Senate and his classes as a law professor. “I have worked on these issues for decades now,” he said. “I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught Constitutional Law. Not simply as a case about privacy but as part of the broader struggle for women’s equality.”

The dissent of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in Gonzales v. Carhart won praise from Obama while Justice Anthony Kennedy, who spoke for the majority, was held up for ridicule.

“The only thing more disturbing than the decision was the rationale of the majority. Without any hard evidence, Justice Kennedy proclaimed, ‘It is self-evident that a woman would regret her choice.’ He cited medical uncertainty about the need to protect the health of pregnant women. Even though the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found no such uncertainty. Justice Kennedy knows many things, my understanding is he does not know how to be a doctor,” Obama said.

On the topic of judicial appointments, Obama reaffirmed his opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito, who are believed to be hostile to the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Obama also depicted his opponents as divisive, saying, “They want us to believe that there’s nothing that unites us as Americans—there’s only what divides us. They’ll seek out the narrowest and most divisive ground.”

Senator Obama said he was “absolutely convinced that culture wars are so nineties,” saying it was “time to turn the page.”

“We’re tired about arguing about the same ole’ stuff,” he continued. And I am convinced we can win that argument. If the argument is narrow, then oftentimes we lose.”

He said abortion advocates should emphasize their support for women to have the “same chances” as men.

Laura Echevarria, the political writer and former National Right to Life Committee spokeswoman who transcribed the July speech, criticized Obama’s remarks.

“Many Americans see Barack Obama as a kind and compassionate candidate,” she said. “However, Mr. Obama’s compassion does not extend to our most vulnerable members of society- -unborn children.”

While I appreciate the extensive documentation on what I already knew- that Obama is not prolife- I wonder if you entertain illusions about the Republicans. Note that if it were merely a matter of Republicans appointing prolife candidates Roe wouold have been overturned by now. They only use abortion to get your vote.
And you seem impressed that partial birth abortions were banned on Bush’s watch. I am not; not a single baby was saved by that, which merely banned one proceedure, arguably not the most painful one, but only the grossest one to we who are born.
I am far from enthusiastic about Obama, especially after viewing the debate. I doubt very much I will vote for him in the general election.
There are, however, other issues than abortion. And if my fears of world war come to pass, the argument about abortion will be moot.
Actually, at this point, after early hope about Ron Paul down the tubes, not only because he has done so poorly in the primaries, but because of his weak explanation for his racist newsletters, and with the dismal prospects shaping up for the election, I am about burnt out on politics.

Actually, Salem bin Laden died in 1988. From what I have read, Osama is the lone radical in a rather worldly family. The bin Ladens, of Yemeni origin, own a huge construction company. One of their bigger projects was the major reconstruction of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.

The history of the interactions between American political and financial elites and the Saudi royals and other wealthy families- like the bin Ladens- is pretty fascinating.
Besides the obvious oil interests, the American intelligence community saw the Islamists as useful allies against the Communists and Arab nationlists (Israeli intelligence made the same fatal error).
Meanwhile, the wealthy Saudis, while officially Wahhabist, grew worldly and westernized. They kept the religious eye off themselves (until recently) by throwing huge sums of money at the clerics, which the clerics used to export the puritanical and fanatical Wahhabist doctrine around the world. Like all bargains with the devil, this one came back to bite them, and us, with a vengeance.

In all seriousness, whether or not one of bin Laden’s siblings (I believe he has around three dozen) made use of a straw investor to put money in a start-up operated by the President thirty years ago is of no interest even if established.

I am recalling an episode of Mission Impossible where a Communist functionary in East Germany has been embezzling funds from a state bank he supervised while planning to escape to the west (through a tunnel running from the bank vault to a location on the other side of the Berlin Wall, no less) to start a “new Nazi Party”. Peter Graves and the gang save the world from this peril.

The notion that all you need is some seed money and a mass movement is yours is the stuff of cheap spy fiction. The machinations of the CIA (the gang that hired and repeatedly promoted Aldrich Ames) are not the source of our predicament in Algeria, Egypt, Iran or any other locus where revanchist Islam is a potential threat. (By the way, the forces we armed were the collection of groups which formed the Government of Afghanistan between 1992 and 1996, which have not proved subsequently unfriendly).

No, the CIA and bin Laden funded and armed the mujahedin, one faction of which went on to govern. I wonder that you see no cause for alarm in the long interaction between the Bush family (and other American elites) and the Saudis…

The more I see of Obama the less I like him.
First, that comment about his one regret being delaying the death of Terri Shiavo. One wonders what he was thinking; he is positioning himself as the one who can unite America, and he chooses such a divisive thing as the Shiavo case? Total misstep, but I am grateful for how it clarifies what he really is about.

Second, the documentation that Miguel supplied makes it clear that he is not, as I had a assumed, the sort of prochoicer whose heart is not in it (my impression of Nader and Kucinich, for example) but rather a proabortion ideologue.

Finally, the cover story of the current American Conservative, which documents that Obama is a liberal interventionist when it comes to foreign policy who is posing as the peace candidate. It includes excerpts from his speech against the invasion of Iraq, in which he repeatedly insists that he is not againts invading other countries. His opposition was pragmatic, not principled. Although he no doubt would be more cautious and diplomatic that Bomb Bomb Iran McCain, that hardly would legitimate voting for him.

So on Tuesday I will cast a futile vote for Ron Paul, resorting again to symbolic acts in the voting booth.

And that is your report from one “undecided” voter in the state of Ohio…

Katherine- your blog does not address any of the obvious objections that Catholics would raise about voting for Obama. Pretty big ommision, it seems to me.
Or are you indifferent to unborn life?
I have no illusions about the Republicans on abortion; it is an issue they throw at Catholics and Evangelicals to get votes, and have no intentiono of disturbing the status quo.
But Miguel’s quotes of Senator Obama make it plain that he is a firm, ideological proponent of abortion.
And as the American Conservative article makes plain, a vote for Obama does not neccesarily mean less military intervention.
Can you address these concerns?

The article in the AC is the cover story, by the way. It is titled “St Barack saves the world”, and it has a picture of the Senator, white robed and haloed. And heavily armed…

Katherine: I’ll trust Daniel’s take on your website. There are very very few candidates that any serious, thoughtful Catholic can vote for without serious qualms. Similarly, I hope no Catholic takes any argument seriously that does not somehow address abortion.